Game-Art-HQ

While the majority of the art on this website is about new and not so old video games and their characters,

the past should not be forgotten either.

We have big art projects ongoing where some of the older games like the first Zelda or Final Fantasy games are included, but in the “Blast Of The Past” articles on Game-Art-HQ you can see art for many more old games and their characters.

1999 meant the start for the Sega Dreamcast in the USA and it had an awesome line up with Sonic Adventure, SoulCalibur and by the end of the Year in Japan, the cult classic Shenmue..a game which still has many gamers waiting for the third part.

Nintendo published Donkey Kong 64 by Rare and and their first fighting game with Super Smash Bros by HAL systems, the creators of the Kirby games, both series are till today very important IP’s for Nintendo.

More or less all systems of the time got Lara Crofts latest adventure, Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation which was re-released recently for PSN and also Steam on PC

Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation

Regina from Dino Crisis

The Sony Playstation dominated the market like in the years before and one hit after another was released..the aged PS1 got sequels for popular series like Resident Evil 3 and Final Fantasy VIII but also new series were born which would be very popular in the future like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Medal of Honor and Crash Team Racing.

Capcom launched their second survival horror game series with Dino Crisis and re-launched Strider on arcades after ten years with Strider 2

The still popular PC Game Team Fortress 2 was announced in 1999 already but delayed to 2007,but many other games got released for the PC like SimCity 3000, EverQuest, Counter-Strike, System Shock 2 and Homeworld.

Strider 2

Launch of the Dreamcast in Japan

The Sega Dreamcast launched in Japan by the end of 1998, but the market belonged mainly to Sony and Nintendo, two companies who got both big system sellers out there with Zelda Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil 2 among many others.

The PC gamers got Starcraft, Half Life and Unreal among a ton of other great games but an even bigger amount of PC shovelware and blue-screens thanks to Win98.

Resident Evil 2

The Arcade market shrinked a bit but was still strong and saw the release of King of Fighters’98, a 2D fighting game by SNK which is still played a lot in Asian arcades.

Metal Slug 2 continued the 2D Gun and Run series while Konami launched the successful Dance Dance Revolution “Bemani” series and made us losing a lot calories.

The Metal Slug 2 Protagonists, Marco, Eri, Tarma and Fio

In 1997, we saw a big battle of Sony and Nintendo, with both companies releasing important sequels and new developments for their platforms.

Nintendo continued their Mario Kart Series and released the most popular console FPS game for a long time with GoldenEye 64, a game which was remade by fans for the PC recently and was used as a mod theme for many PC games.

Sony released their new racing game flagship, Gran Turismo while their Playstation got also a giant support by third party developers like Squaresoft with Final Fantasy VII, Konami with Castlevania SOTN, Namco with SoulBlade and Capcom with Street Fighter ports and MegaMan Legends. There was also this weird game with the name Grand Theft Auto which became a surprise hit.

The Sega Saturn got not a lot new games anymore and the most of them were released in Japan only.Noteable exceptions were the Resident Evil port and exclusive games like Three Dirty Dwarves.

A lot new arcade games were released in 1997, especially fighting games like Tekken 3, Street Fighter III and Mortal Kombat 4 gained many fans.

PC Players got great role playing games like Fallout and RTS like Age of Empires

As the last of the three big companies at that time, Nintendo released a new platform in Summer 1996

with the Nintendo 64 console. While the graphic itself could display more polygons and avoid the pixelating

effect through filters, it was still based on Cardridges which made games based on pre-redendered

backgrounds like Final Fantasy VII quite impossible, especially the music and sound effects and

lack of videos hurt the system in the following years.

Since 1996, Nintendo lost more and more third party publishers and were not able to retain their absolute

dominating position of the NES-SNES times in the TV console market.  While Mario 64 was a ground-breaking

new 3D platformer, Nintendo lost many gamers to the 32bit consoles and new game experiences

like Resident Evil on the Playstation. A game which would be remade years later for the Nintendo Gamecube.

Sega also got the rights to release Tomb Raider on their Saturn as the first platform, which did not help the system really though, instead it got sequel after sequel on the Playstation.

The PC Community got some great games like Elder Scrolls III, Duke Nukem 3D and one of the most popular PC games of all times with Diablo in November 1996.

Metal Slug, a new 2D run and gun by SNK conquered the arcades worldwide and spawned around 10 sequels so far.

 While another wave of great 16bit games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World 2, Phantasy Star IV are getting released, the new 32bit Consoles with their CDrom and 3D technologies are entering the markets.

Especially the Sony Playstation launches with a giant success thanks to titles like Ridge Racer, Toshinden, Tekken and WipeOut while Sega fans get Virtua Fighter 2, Clockwork Knight and of course the Saturn ports of the 3D Racers Sega Rally and a optimized version of Daytona USA

The other 32 bit System, the 3D0 got a few own games and ports too, but continued to be unsuccessful on the market.

Chrono Trigger / Frog

Alien Soldier

Earthworm Jim

Ness from Earthbound

Fulgore from Killer Instinct

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The Cyberdemon from Doom

Secret of Mana

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Axelay by Konami

Fantastic Dizzy

1991 was a very important year for the big video game companies, with Nintendo releasing their new 16bit console, the Super Nintendo (SNES) outside Japan and new sequels of their popular series like Super Mario World, Zelda ALTTP and new series like F-Zero and Pilotwings. Sega developed and released Sonic the Hedgehog, their answer to Super Mario. The Mega Drive also got Golden Axe II, Phantasy Star II, Langrisser and ToeJam & Earl.

The Arcade market saw some of its absolute golden years with Street Fighter II getting released, a new fighting game which set a new standard and inspired a ton of other games in the following years.

PC and Amiga players could be lucky about Lemmings and Civilization which raised the bar for future puzzle and strategy games while Another World on the Amiga raised eyebrows everywhere through its unique art style and fluid animations.

Meanwhile, the aging 8bit systems got a few more gems like Fantastic Dizzy by Codemasters among others.

Gargoyle’s Quest

Final Fight (Arcades)

In 1989, Nintendo released their first big handheld platform, the Game Boy with launch titles like Tetris and Super Mario Land to enter millions of households, Sega released their new 16bit console, the Sega Mega Drive as the Genesis in the USA. Meanwhile, the NES and the Master System got more waves of great games like Castlevania III, Duck Tales, and a English version of Dragon Warrior (all NES), Golden Axe and Wonder Boy III (Master System.

On the PC, real time strategy games like Populous by Bullfrog and Sim City by Maxis were released and gained a lot of popularity, with Sim City being a big thing even in 2013.

The arcade market reached new heights with a ton of new games getting released worldwide including the till today popular beat’em up Final Fight by Capcom.

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Simon Belmont

Alex Kidd in Miracle World

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The Ice Climbers

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